In Season 3 of Alice in Borderland, there’s one last card in the deck — the Joker — which sets up Arisu’s (Kento Yamazaki) and Usagi’s (Tao Tsuchiya) toughest challenge yet. The couple’s missing memories about their previous time in Borderland allow them to be manipulated back into the deadly dimension where they’re forced to enter a tournament of fellow Borderland survivors to find their way to each other, their home, and their potential future. Their most difficult challenges await them as they make their way through even more diabolical games and come face-to-face with one last decider of their fate. So how did the show’s third season end? Read on to find out. 

What could possibly possess Arisu and Usagi to go back to Borderland?

Season 3 picks up five years after the main events of Season 2. Arisu and Usagi are married in the real world and only remember their time in Borderland through confused flashbacks that they can’t understand. Meanwhile, Banda (Hayato Isomura) wants the duo — and especially Arisu — back in Borderland to make the games in the in-between land more entertaining. So he employs a university professor named Ryuji (Kento Kaku) to lure a vulnerable Usagi back to the in-between dimension. Ryuji is happy to help Banda, as he’s on a mission to get to the world of the dead to reunite with a student and research partner who was helping him with a paper on Borderland. Ryuji, who believes that delivering Usagi to Banda is the only way to get the information about the next world he needs, appeals to Usagi’s grief for her father, manipulating her into another near-death experience that gets them both to Borderland. 

When Arisu discovers Usagi has disappeared, he’s desperate to find her, so he reunites with Ann (Ayaka Miyoshi) — who’d earlier tracked down a confused Arisu at his job. Though he barely understands Ann’s explanation of the Borderland, Arisu agrees to let her give him a drug to stop his heart for two minutes in the real world. Her theory is that this should give him enough time to find Usagi and bring her back so that Arisu can be revived. It’s a fight against the clock, and  Arisu doesn’t get his memories back of the main deck games until he’s back in Borderland. It’s only then he realizes that the only way back home is to defeat the final card in the deck: the Joker. 

What do the Joker games look like? 

In the first two seasons of Alice in Borderland, the game themes and their difficulty levels were decided by the suits and numbers of the corresponding cards. The players have much less choice in the Joker stage, which is constructed like a tournament. Everyone participating in this stage, including Arisu and Usagi, survived the regular deck games, and now they’ll use that experience to make it through progressively more difficult and deadly games. If they succeed, they can choose whether to return to the real world or to stay in Borderland.

Like the games in Seasons 1 and 2, the Joker games also test the players’ abilities — like wit, teamwork, strength, and capacity for betrayal. But unlike the earlier stages, in the Joker round, the contestants have no choice in what order they play the games. Arisu’s first bout tests trivia and quick thinking. The second game tests teamwork and loyalty. The third involves navigating through a train filled with sporadic poisonous gas chambers. That’s when Arisu finally sees Usagi, who’s playing the same game on a different train. 

Arisu’s fourth game is a deadly one of hide-and-seek that involves a hot potato–like element of carrying around exploding canisters. Usagi’s fourth game requires her to climb Tokyo Tower, where she must light up a Bingo board while cannonballs from above threaten to knock players off the tower. The betrothed finally reunite in the final challenge, a dice and logic game where players must choose possible futures in each new room they enter in a grid maze. It requires luck, loyalty, and teamwork to be able to make it through to the exit. 

Are there any other characters from Seasons 1 and 2 in the new games? 

No, Usagi and Arisu are the only ones from the core crew of the first two seasons to return to Borderland, where Banda now lives. They’re each put in separate groups through all the games except for the last one, allowing them to build new teams to help them progr progress through the games. The teams unite for the final game, which Arisu believes is best to play together. 

What are the rules of the final game? 

The final game is a 5 x 5-grid of rooms that the group must navigate in order to find the one with an exit. Each quadrant has a set of dice that corresponds to the colored doors on each wall that allow players to advance to the next round. Players roll the dice at the start of each round to find out how many players can move through the respective doors. A 2 on the yellow dice means that only two people can go through the yellow door, for example. If the numbers on the dice don’t add up to the total number of people currently in the room, then someone must stay behind and wait for another player to release them. 

Each door in the rooms also corresponds to a possible future for the players, which is played on a big screen during every round. If they choose the door for a certain future, it’s what will become true when they reenter the real world. 

Each player is given 15 points to start the game. It costs 1 point to move through any given door. It also costs 1 point to stay behind. There are also rooms that don’t display futures but require extra points to leave, and some of these penalties cost as much as 8 points. The players don’t know which of the rooms have random penalties until they enter them. A player is eliminated if their point total reaches 0 before they reach the exit. 

Who is playing the final game with Arisu and Usagi?

Ryuji is still alive for the final game and has orders to kill Usagi. Banda believes Arisu will only agree to stay in Borderland and continue playing the games if Usagi is dead, giving Arisu no reason to return to the real world. The other two players who make it to the final game with Usagi are brother and sisters Yuna (Ikeda Akana) and Itsuki (Joey Iwanaga). 

Arisu brings Tetsu (Koji Ohkura), a person living with addiction; Sachiko (Risa Sudô), a survivor of abuse who serves as the team’s mother figure; Rei (Tina Tamashiro), an anime producer and schemer; and teen Nobu (Kotaro Daigo) with him to the final game. Both teams combine to try and make it through the maze together. 

Who dies during the final game? 

The dice limits the number of people who can move through each door, which means the team has to split up early on, though they can still communicate via their electronic bracelets. Arisu tries to keep everyone in as large a group as possible so they can take turns using points and maintain a pool that will help them navigate to the end. But the dice, and everyone’s individual ambitions, quickly dismantle Arisu’s plans. 

Nobu ditches Tetsu when the two of them need to go through a door corresponding to a future that Nobu can’t face. Tetsu’s drug withdrawals kick into overdrive once he’s left alone, and he chooses a future in which he appears to kick his addiction and reunites with his ex-wife. The door isn’t where he’s supposed to go, though, and he ends up in a room that takes more points than he has left, eliminating him from the game. 

Ryuji convinces the siblings that Arisu is only there to save Usagi, so they should actually be making the decisions that are best for them. They leave him and go to a room that reveals their parents dying in a car crash, but also Itsuki walking his sister down the aisle to a happy marriage. They choose this future for themselves instead of following Arisu’s directions to get Rei out of lockdown. Meanwhile, Itsuki insists on using his point pool as he and Yuna navigate through their own path in the game, but then they roll only a 1 on the dice, which forces them to split up. Itsuki walks into a room with a penalty that brings his point total down to 0, so he’s eliminated while Yuna is locked in the next room.    

Do Arisu and Usagi make it through the final game? 

Yes, but it takes several twists to get there. Usagi finds out she’s pregnant at the start of the game when she’s given two sets of points. She avoids using the second set of points until after Itsuki dies and the team needs them to get everyone to the exit door at the corner of the maze. Everyone except Tetsu and Itsuki make it to the exit room, but they have to roll the dice one more time to see how many people can actually leave. 

Arisu rolls a 7, meaning one person has to stay behind. He chooses to sacrifice himself so that everyone else can live and Usagi can go back to the real world to raise their child. Ryuji and the others drag her through the final door so the game can be officially cleared. However, Banda’s goal the entire time has been to make sure Arisu stays in Borderland. So the game announces that, by sacrificing himself, Arisu actually wins the game while the others walk through the exit door to a flooded Tokyo and a tidal wave coming their way. 

Arisu breaks out of the final room, but not before he sees Ryuji nearly shoot Usagi, followed by the two of them being washed away by the wave. Arisu helps the others get back on the steady platform, then jumps into the water to save Usagi. 

Does Arisu manage to save Usagi?

He’s close, but he also hits the two-minute mark in the real world, which means he has mere seconds to save Usagi before he runs out of time to return to his life. In Borderland, Arisu hits his head and falls unconscious. In the real world, Banda stands over Arisu’s body and gloats that he finally has him where he wants him, but Ann fights him off and yells at Arisu to wake up and find Usagi before it’s too late. Back in Borderland, Arisu miraculously hears her, wakes up, and swims back to the surface to find his wife. 

However, Arisu finds Banda instead. Banda reveals that he wants Arisu to stay, but of course, Arisu refuses, which angers Banda. The game maker is about to lash out, but then is killed by a mysterious newcomer who calls himself the Watchman (Ken Watanabe). The Watchman offers Arisu one last game, in which he must choose between two cards. If Arisu picks a number card, he can choose his own fate. If he selects a Joker, the Watchman will decide Arisu’s fate for him. 

Arisu chooses a card, but it’s the Joker. So the next move is in the Watchman’s hands. 

Is the Watchman the Joker?

He is not. The Watchman is in charge of keeping an eye on the Borderland in exchange for avoiding death. He explains that, if you add up all the numbers and face cards in a deck of cards, they equal 364. When you add in the Joker, it equals 365, which is the number of days in a real-world year. The second Joker makes it 366, the number of days in a leap year. So the Joker isn’t a person, but a construct to make the deck complete.

What does the Watchman decide for Arisu?

Arisu points out that both cards offered by the Watchman are probably Jokers. The Watchman confirms this is true, and — since he finds Arisu so intriguing — he decides to give him another choice: He can either fall into a water vortex that will take him to the world of the dead, where there’ll be no more suffering, or he can walk back to the real world, where there’ll be more trials and pain. Arisu knows that being in the real world is the only way he can be with Usagi again, but before he officially decides, he spots her and Ryuji struggling in the current that leads to death. 

Arisu jumps in the water and swims after Usagi, who Ryuji is trying to drag with him toward the vortex. After Usagi fights Ryuji off, he goes down to the vortex alone, enabling Arisu to catch up with Usagi. But before Arisu can bring her to safety,  Usagi has a vision of her father on the mountain where he died. Her father tells her that he wants her to move on from his death, to live and be happy. This gives her the closure she needs, so she chooses to live. When Usagi comes to, she and Arisu make it back to safety and exit Borderland, re-entering the real world to begin their future together. 

Does everyone else also make it out?

Yes. All the survivors of the final game except Ryuji go back to the real world. Nobu goes to college to study architecture. Sachiko leaves her husband and has a happy life with her family. Rei returns to producing anime TV shows and movies and communicates with her parents. Yuna finds a way to be happy even though her brother doesn’t make it back with her. Arisu and Usagi pick out names for their soon-to-be-born baby daughter. Arisu is also working as a therapist, with multiple friends from the first two seasons as his clients. Together, they’re enjoying the journey to finding purpose and living life to the fullest. 

Does this mean the Borderland adventures are finally over? 

Not so fast! The final scene of the season takes us to the US, where two friends are getting coffee and talking about sports. They’re sitting at a table when we get a shot of the waitress bringing them drinks. Her name tag reads “Alice.” 

The implication? The Borderland and its deadly games are heading overseas.

Alice in Borderland Seasons 1–3 are now streaming on Netflix. 

Will there be an Alice in Borderland Season 4? 

There’s no word yet on a fourth season of the series. 

Kick-Ass K-Dramas To Stream NowFrom Squid Game to Money Heist: Korea – Joint Economic Area, these Korean series are packed with drama.